My friend Sue gifted me with this old tackle box for my birthday last year.

Of course, she filled it with some other fun vintage items using the tackle box as a sort of ‘gift box’.  How perfect!

Sue knows me well and obviously knew I would appreciate a rusty, crusty old tacklebox!

And that I would obviously give it a makeover.

I started by having my handyman/neighbor Ken drill out the pop-up trays from inside.

I do sometimes leave these trays in place (check out this example), but it makes it quite a bit more difficult to paint the interior.  I tend to resort to using spray paint when I leave the trays inside.

In this case, I decided to remove them.

After giving the tackle box a good cleaning, followed by a good sanding, I realized that I quite liked the original color.  So I decided to work with it.  I first applied a coat of Dixie Belle’s Bonding Boss to keep any rust from bleeding through my paint.  Then I applied just one quick coat of their Antebellum Blue both inside and out.

This color matched almost perfectly, which meant that I really only needed one coat to get the coverage that I wanted.  Bonus!

After sanding to distress a bit, I pulled out the IOD Brocante transfer.  It happens to have two images of white roses in it, and I thought the white would really pop over the Antebellum Blue.

That being said, I had planned to put some typography from the IOD Label Ephemera transfer on the box, but after adding a small bee and some script to the handle area, I realized that black typography was not going to show up as well as I’d like it to on this color.

So, since that Label Ephemera transfer is getting harder and harder to find at a reasonable price, I decided to forgo that.  I finished it off with a coat of Dixie Belle’s flat clear coat on the inside, and a coat of their clear wax on the outside.

I don’t think this tackle box really needed anything more.

I think it’s pretty enough as is.

What do you think?

Once again, this tackle box is for sale locally so check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page if you’re interested in more details.